Voice Therapy

Voices are modular and can be trained to change speaking pitch, frequency, resonance, inflection, and so on. Speech pathologists work with trans clients to create a healthy framework to train your voice into sounding what we’d consider more feminine and masculine. The work creates a voice that is not forced, sounds natural, and doesn’t strain or damage vocal tissue. With training over time and practice, many trans individuals have success with bringing their natural speaking voice into a consistent range to be correctly gendered over phone or during conversations.

Access To Therapy

1. Find a speech pathologist locally who can help you. (MSUM in Moorhead is one such option)
   • Insurance can often cover this for trans individuals with a referral from primary doctor
   • Many colleges who are training speech pathology students can write off cost
   • Many places can do telehealth services for this
2. Find an online specialists (Such as this person)
   • Online coaches can help you speak to a professional to get started on the basics in a health way
   • These spaces may not be as reliable as professional speech pathologists, but are a good option if the first one doesn’t work
3. Find YouTube Tutorials. (Such as this person)
   • A number of lessons and tutorials exist online, they are an alternative if getting professional help is not on the table
   • Don’t over practice, follow stretching and warm-up routines, understand improvement isn’t linear, and stop if you ever feel strain
   • A 45 Minute primer/Tutorial can be found here by Jess Gibbard.

Apps for Progress: Voice Pitch Analyzer

• There are several apps like this on the market and for free. They can help you track progress and goals, especially if you’re unable to access professional service or in conjunction with it.
• Voice is a component of many different factors and just focusing on any one thing like pitch isn’t the be all end all. You being comfortable with how you sound and talking in a way that minimizes strain and ensures healthy vocal health is the best goal.

Voice can take a long time to change and a lot of practice, but most people can significantly improve their comfort and confidence when speaking. We rarely take just voice into account when speaking with someone. We take body language, expression, and gender expression into account as well. If you have a background in music and singing this tends to come easier. Even without any background or experience in talking or projecting, practice can have a lot of improvement that is hard for you to see as an individual. Try practicing with a partner and speaking to people you speak to rarely every couple of months to really see those improvements. For many people they don’t report just getting better over time, but eventually things click into place and you can find months without progress leading into weeks of intense growth.